Shopping List......

On our first day we were provided with a list of Equipment and Materials we'll need.  Looks like I'll be doing a little shopping

Must Have:

• Best Digital camera you can buy (Thank you mom and dad!!)
• Camera User Guide (To be with you at all times!)
• Computer with CD/DVD burner and internet access
• At least 2 4GB cards (You never know when your card might die on you.  So he suggests that when you're out taking a lot of pictures, you rotate your card just incase.  That way you won't loose it all.  He suggested storing in a Gepe.
• External Hard Drive (Learning from the recent death of my desktop - I've got this one covered.  By the end of the class he'll want us to purchase a second.  He's big on backing up your files!)
• Small notebook and pen (He suggests you take notes on the location of your photos)
• USB Jump Drive (Each week he'll put our homework assignments up on a projector so we can all review)
• Micro fiber lens cleaning cloth (Sorry dad....he's not a fan of the tissues and drops you gave me)

Should Have:

• Adobe Lightroom (They offer a student discount - so I'm harassing a co-worker currently a MBA student at NYU.  Saves me $100.  Poor Steve......)
• Card Reader

Optional:

• Assortment of lenses (Thanks to mom and dad I already have a 55-200mm)
• Adobe Photoshop (Elements is fine)
• Cable release or electronic release (Helps take a steady picture)
• Small flash (Apparently he things our built in flashes are pretty sucky)
• Circular polarizing filter (This might fall off the list)
• Tripod
• A good basic digital photography book
• Subscription to National Geographic Magazine (Great source of pictures and inspiration.  Crossed this one off the list today.)

First day of class!

Can you tell I'm excited for class to start?!  Best part is I'm taking the class with my friend Sarah.  Day 1 we met the instructor and other students in the class.  He went over a few basics and told us why all our pictures suck.  But that is all about to change.....

What we learned on Day 1

- How pictures are captured, mega pixels and memory.
So if you have a 12 MP camera - it contains 12,000 receptors that capture light.  The receptors are divided into 3 colors (red, green, blue) that capture the light.  The light then turns into electricity then into a number.  This number is the RAW data.  Most cameras are set up to save as JPEG - which cuts the size of the picture way down...the camera makes a few general assumptions about the picture (like maybe generalizing a white back ground to only one shade of white vs. the true multiple shades it contains) so you loose a lot of the detail.  FYI......every time you re-save a JPEG, you're actually loosing more data.  I think he said you can save a JPEG 90 times before its nothing.  When working in PhotoShop - most likely saving the file as TIFF.  With TIFF, you won't loose data every time you save. We'll be working with RAW eventually.

- Six qualities of Light

• Brightness
• Direction
• Color (Cool, Neutral, Warm)
• Contrast (Hard vs. Low)
• Specularity (refers to the size of a light source - so think a bright sunny day)
• Diffuse (think a cloudy day)

We had a little quiz to see if we could identify the different light qualities....I might not have a natural eye for these things.  I have a lot to learn!

First assignment - we have to take 13 pictures using the above light sources.